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The essay outlines a four-phase triage process made by a fictive Talmudic rabbi working on an equally fictive hospital COVID-19 ward. The rabbi bases his decision on four different Talmudic texts, proceeding one by one, with each text building on the preceding one, until he is ready to allocate his scarce medical resources to one of the patients, thus being forced to deny them to others. Along the way, the paper will examine how this Talmudic reasoning can also be applied to the patient, or even a potential patient, clarifying the demands of the individual's ethical responsibility to avoid triage situations in the first place through social distancing and even more so through getting vaccinated. The paper argues that the rabbi has a number of Talmudic tools at hand that make his decision easier, not because he strictly follows Jewish law, but because of the rich experience standing behind Jewish legal traditions, making a universally valid ethical justification of difficult decisions possible. The essay proposes that including such theological material in triage guidelines would help make those decisions more acceptable in the long run, especially for societies in which religious traditions still play a certain role in the cultural consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the proliferation of new variations of COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) continues to increase, it is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. Indeed, we are living in a world of interrelating and overlapping pandemics—a syndemic. A syndemic accelerates the polarization of access to health care, financial support, and education opportunities in marginalized communities, and the polarization breeds social injustice, violence, and ignorance. What, then, is the Gospel the Church proclaims for those who have experienced the pandemic and are now facing a syndemic? As part of a liturgical response, this paper proposes preaching as a praxis of the ecclesiological Gospel. The ecclesiological Gospel is a term I suggest to highlight the contextual, sacramental, and communal aspects of the Gospel. Highlighting God's holistic work for salvation represented in baptism and the eucharist, the ecclesiological Gospel yearns to form a church that baptizes people in diversity, that severs evil interconnections, and that welcomes people to the table of hospitality that forms a new covenantal relationship. This paper examines the concept of a syndemic and its significance for preaching in marginalized communities. It contrasts a holistic Gospel perspective with a narrow view, proposes preaching as praxis of the ecclesiological Gospel, and illustrates its application within a particular context in responding to syndemic conditions. I hope this work offers a chance to reorient the meaning of the Gospel and the identity of the Church for people living in fear, grief, and hopelessness, while encouraging them with the unwavering hope revealed in Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines how Hindu nationalist social service organizations, specifically the Deseeya Seva Bharathi (DSB), reconfigured the religious conception of 'Seva' to advance the project of constructing a Hindu social identity during the COVID-19 pandemic in the state of Kerala. The southern Indian state of Kerala has remained an exception in the story of the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement in contemporary India, which has repeatedly failed to make any considerable political inroads in the state. However, the disastrous economic consequences and livelihood challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, which was heavily dependent on foreign remittance and service industries, have opened up new spaces of engagement for Hindu nationalists. Drawing on the fieldwork conducted in central Kerala during the pandemic, this paper will elaborate on how the DSB used the crisis moment of the pandemic to reach out to economically and socially disadvantaged communities using the language of 'Seva' to build a Hindu social identity, which imbues the influence of majoritarian Hindu nationalist politics. The paper argues that the DSB's articulation of 'Seva' as a distinct and superior form of social service that is 'self-less', 'non-instrumental' and 'non-reciprocal' is significant in understanding the growing appeal of Hindu nationalist social service in the contested political sphere of Kerala, which is marked by competing social provisions by the state as well as other secular and religious groups. The paper notes that the reconfiguration of 'Seva' as a continuous religious concept enables Hindu nationalists to attain greater acceptance and legitimacy that even the secular state welfare could not achieve, while also concealing the inherent instrumental nature of its social service towards the construction of a Hindu social identity in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to examine whether Buddhist ethics can improve the health and well-being of Buddhist practitioners during pandemics like COVID-19. It is hypothesized that diseases are part of suffering, and Buddhist teachings aim to eliminate the suffering of all beings. Buddhism also offers ethical codes of conduct for its practitioners to improve their health and well-being. So, the Buddha's teaching or Buddhist ethics, when practiced seriously, should be able to improve one's health, physically and mentally, enhancing the well-being of all Buddhist practitioners during the spread of all pandemics including COVID-19. The present study found that Buddhist ethical practices like the chanting of Buddhist suttas and the development of mindfulness, concentration/meditation, and insight (vipassanā) can improve both physical and mental health, which are important for dealing with any pandemic, tremendously. If the cores of Buddhist ethics (morality, meditation, and wisdom) are perfectly practiced, not only will one live with good physical and mental health but one also will be able to eliminate all the mental defilements that are the root causes of all illnesses and thus enter nibbāna, the state of mind that is beyond all sources of suffering including pandemics/epidemics. More specifically, this paper highlights a set of Buddhist practices, called four bhāvanās (types of development), that can be used to improve health and well-being during any pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the controversy over the mode of distribution of Holy Communion that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on debates that took place in the Greek Orthodox community. After describing and evaluating the role of secular and religious experts in the context of the pandemic, the paper analyzes three main perspectives on the issue of the Eucharist: (1) the secularist-rationalist viewpoint; (2) the religious–traditionalist outlook; and (3) the "Third Way" perspective. The paper argues that the Church's Holy Communion controversy is indicative of a deeper struggle between religious and secular thinkers and among various voices in the Greek Orthodox Church concerning the latter's place in, and influence over, the modern secular socio-political order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The touristic use of sacred sites is a widespread practice in Hungary. Throughout the past centuries, Christianity has dominated the history of the Carpathian Basin. The Hungarian State's strong affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church dates back to its foundation over a 1000 years ago. Due to its location on the shore of Lake Balaton and outstanding natural environment, the Benedictine Tihany Abbey is a major touristic destination and a popular place of pilgrimage in Hungary. The objective of the present paper is to examine how touristic activities contribute to the livelihood of a Hungarian monastic community and local economic development in the 21st century. To answer the research questions, the study primarily relied on literature and documentary analysis, in-depth interviews, and the construction and processing of a database. The research revealed that in addition to the classic elements (e.g., guided tours in the abbey, museum exhibitions, concerts, etc.), the program offer developed by the monastic community of Tihany is capable of addressing new target audiences: the rapidly rising number of tourists from the Far East (mainly Japan, China, South Korea, and Russia). Despite remaining considerably below visitor numbers recorded by the abbey in the mid-1990s, a significant increase in visitor numbers was observed in 2018–2019. The economic activities of the Benedictines of Tihany comprise a number of different areas beyond tourism, e.g., agricultural production and candle making, both of which are integrated into their tourism offer and feature among touristic programs. As a major employer, the abbey exerts a positive impact on the population retention capacity of the settlement by offering jobs to local residents, and it also contributes to population growth by attracting a large number of highly skilled professionals who choose to settle down in the region. The paper shows the evidence of the pandemic on pilgrimage and religious tourism in Tihany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a variety of reasons for which one might claim an exemption from a public health mandate such as a required COVID-19 vaccine. Good-faith exemption requests—for medical, religious, or other reasons—are generally recognized as legitimate and granted to individuals when the imposition of the mandate on the requestor is perceived to outweigh the corresponding risk their lack of vaccination poses to the health and rights of others. This paper develops a method of analysis rooted in Western analytic philosophy designed to examine these issues and arrive at a framework for assessing the scientific, moral, and religious claims for exemptions from COVID-19 vaccinations. I argue that some empirical and moral beliefs are epistemically superior to others when they have a correspondence with agreed-upon facts about the world, are grounded in shared human experience, employ strong and substantive reasons for their claims, and embrace common convictions evidenced in the character of moral agents. Such facts must be demonstrable in the form of observably verifiable evidence and reliable testimony. Only then should a request for an exemption to an otherwise-required public health mandate (including a vaccine) be recognized. The alternative creates various difficulties, including the problem of moral arbitrariness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many in the West, paternalism manifest as state interference carries a pejorative connotation, as it is often taken to entail unjustified restrictions on autonomy and self-determination and frequently believed to precipitate bureaucracy, corruption, and inefficiency. Meanwhile, uncritical deference to policies in which individual liberties remain essentially unchecked by state oversight has faced renewed scrutiny since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, as many across the globe are now coming to believe that we must accept greater governmental intervention in our lives, particularly during times of widespread health crises. This paper explores normative considerations justifying state intervention with respect to public health policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of Confucian paternalism, which is distinguished from a more general concept of paternalism widely used in contemporary philosophical discourse. It argues that the "soft" paternalism apropos to Confucianism has pragmatic benefits for the development of healthcare policies due to which it is not only morally warranted but even preferable to alternatives in terms of safeguarding population health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kōfuku no Kagaku is a most visible new religious actor in contemporary Japan thanks to the vast publishing activities of its founder and its widespread professional use of new media. This paper examines how Kōfuku no Kagaku engages with the COVID-19 pandemic in practical and doctrinal terms. Notably, early in the pandemic, Kōfuku no Kagaku's international promotion of spiritual cures and vaccines even prompted The New York Times to feature the group in a widely circulated article in April 2020. This paper outlines these "spiritual technologies" and examines their doctrinal rationale as well as the wider doctrinal appropriation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be shown how the latter is instrumentalised to echo Kōfuku no Kagaku's millenarian agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaders on the forefront of the rapidly escalating climate crisis continually seek effective strategies to help communities stay engaged without burning out or spiraling into despair. This paper examines the concept of adaptive change for its potential to reframe disruption and intentionally harness its potential for building resilience in both practical and psychological ways. In particular, social science suggests that secure communal bonds lay the foundation for the adaptive ability to build resilience through and from disruption. Swiss history offers an intriguing example of this phenomenon: held up as a model for its social, political, and ecological resilience, Swiss democracy evolved as part of the restructuring of society after a series of disruptive historical pandemics. This paper uses the Swiss example and the current COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease) pandemic in order to explore the potential of transcendent and adaptive sociological and theological frameworks for the development of robust concepts of resilience in the face of climate destabilization. It further argues that a wide theological interpretation of Eucharistic abundance offers a lens through which to claim the liberative resurrection of disruptions, even, or perhaps especially, in the extreme case of human or planetary annihilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to identify the changes in religiosity among Catholic practitioners in Poland that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the changes in the realization of religious practices by students (N = 354). A questionnaire prepared by the authors was used for the study. We sought to answer the question of the extent to which the socio-demographic characteristics of the subjects, a history of COVID-19, and the death of a family member due to SARS-CoV-2 infection differentiated the subjects' opinions about religiosity and their undertaking of religious practices. The paper also addresses the issue of media-facilitated religious practices. The study showed that the frequency of religious practices was influenced by the perceived religiosity of the family, the religiosity of the respondent, and the declaration concerning the belief in God. The same factors most often significantly differentiated respondents' opinions on COVID-19. No relationship was confirmed between having COVID-19 and subjects' beliefs about the pandemic or frequency of religious practice. Among the respondents, the pandemic did not intensify the practice of religion. In the face of danger, respondents did not turn to God; there was no revitalization of religion. The situation of limiting the physical experience communion of the Church was treated not as an acute undersupply but as an opportunity or a pretext to abandon the practice of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Africa, refusal of COVID-19 and other vaccines is widespread for different reasons, including disbelief in the existence of the virus itself and faith in traditional remedies. In sub-Saharan countries, refusal is often made worse by opposition to vaccines by the religious establishments. This is a pressing problem, as Africa has the highest vaccine-avoidable mortality rate for children under the age of five in the world. Dialogue between those wishing to promote vaccines and those who resist them is essential if the situation is to be improved. This article argues that Western and other aid agencies seeking to promote vaccination programs need to develop a dialogue with resisters, and in this process to embrace and commend the ancient African philosophical tradition of Ubuntu, incorporating it into these programs as a way to overcome such entrenched resistance. The paper concludes with concrete recommendations for how to accomplish this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed people's long-standing group life, and "less gathering" has become a popular slogan during this period. People will probably feel lonely when they are physically, socially, or mentally distanced and isolated or excluded, and they usually perceive a deficiency in the quality or quantity of their social relationships. Although loneliness is easily conflated with solitude, loneliness as an emotion is generally regarded as negative while solitude can be positive. There are various causes and effects of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, and loneliness has been found to have significant impacts on poorer physical and mental health. Religiosity and spirituality are specifically proven to have a great impact on handling loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. When regarding belongingness as the opposite of loneliness and social isolation, religious belonging means a feeling of being "at home" and "connected". In this paper, from a comparative approach, we attempt to investigate how the three most prominent traditions in East Asia, i.e., Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, can help manage the feeling of loneliness. Due to different understandings of loneliness, their coping strategies for loneliness also vary. Through a preliminary study of "benevolence and rites," "wu-wei and freedom," and "mindfulness and spiritual realization," we can learn from the ancient wisdom about how to reduce loneliness and promote spiritual well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted society in myriad ways, but how the pandemic has changed traditional forms of religion has been relatively understudied. Addressing this caveat, in this paper, I try to understand how adherents of an Islamic revivalist movement, the Tablighi Jamaat, turn to WhatsApp for meaning-making at the onset of the pandemic in Pakistan. The adherents are unable to sustain the use of the digital space due to incompatibility between the logic of the movement and the online platform. Without structural authority and organization, communication is chaotic and, at times, combative. The mixing of pure and impure ideas is also detrimental to communal cohesiveness. This study provides a counterexample to previous claims of symbiosis between online and offline religion and their inevitable merger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 period, many authors observed changes occurring in pilgrimage along the Way of Saint James. Pandemics have appeared many times in the history of this route, causing changes in the behavior of pilgrims and their environment, such as improvements in healthcare. In this paper, we begin by examining the new contributions that the pandemic has made to the contemporary religious experience of the Camino. The pandemic can be read in a twofold manner: as an attempt to "verify" the motives and as an "opportunity" to preserve the essence of pilgrimage; it also seems to be capable of changing the attitudes of the residents living along the Camino towards the pilgrims. Next, we point to several phenomena that appear on the horizon of the post-pandemic Camino, such as the isolationism of pilgrims, the dominance of individualism, the medicalization of pilgrimage and the restrictions on access to religious practices. This opens up the question of new forms of asceticism with which the Camino has been associated and new trends in pilgrimage to Compostela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religions and religiosities are among the various social life spheres being affected by medical and political measures imposed during the health emergency. Involving a wide range of daily life dimensions and intertwining with fundamental aspects of individual and social existence, restrictions hit religions and religiosities in all those spaces where they find expression in our contemporary era. Pandemic restraints induced changes in the use of different public spaces: from school to home, from workplaces to places of worship, from prisons to squares, from hospitals to cemeteries. This also concerned the way religiosity could be performed, lived and shared in everyday life, for communities, families and individuals. In particular, during the pandemic, the role of religious environments became, once again, a place of material as well as spiritual support for migrants. And in this perspective, young people, i.e., second generations, played a prominent role, regaining prestige and recognition from adults. In fact, from being perceived as "far from religion and on the road to secularization", as one interviewee said, young people have been able to show how it is possible to reinterpret religion in emigration, without abandoning religious values. This paper discusses the results of preliminary research on the topic conducted in the first phase of the pandemic in Turin, a city that, for its history of immigration and consolidated presence of Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox communities, is an emblematic case of the Italian multicultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the ways in which the Filipino Christian value of pakikipagkapwa (fellowship) can be seen and experienced in modern society. Using empirical phenomenology, this paper aims to (re)imagine the ways of cultivating ways of dialogue with religious others while understand the meaning of pakikipagkapwa (fellowship). This study explores the contemporary notions and practices of pakikipagkapwa among select Filipino Christians and how such cultural value fosters interreligious dialogue. Moreover, the study investigates the importance of dialogue between religious actors as they navigate the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors contend that pakikipagkapwa and interreligious dialogue build communities, support social cohesion, and help religious actors find meaning in difficult circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, religious services worldwide were forced to migrate online. This phenomenon is still yet to be properly investigated, especially in the context of religious and ethnic minorities: a research gap that this paper aims to address. Herein, 18 semi-structured in-depth interviews with members of the Russian community in South Tyrol served as methodological tool to explore: (1) the role of the Orthodox religion and (2) of digital media for the community and, finally, (3) how its members enacted religion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical results show how community members, despite being highly familiar with digital tools and technology-based solutions, deliberately chose not to use digital media to search for religious content or to attend religious services. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and an increasingly digitised world, the specific example of the Russian community in South Tyrol helps to better understand how migrant communities live and enact religion. The present study aims at contributing to the emerging field of the study of (digital) religion and embodiment of religion from a minority perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2020–2021, the COVID-19 pandemics exacerbated the use of digital communication tools for the general population as well as for migrant and diasporic communities. Due to social distancing requirements, church activities had to be suspended or restricted, therefore, local congregations and denominations had to incorporate social media as part of their regular worship channels in an unprecedented way. At the same time, these new spaces opened an opportunity for diasporas to reconnect with their churches back home, and to participate in digital worship projects. In this paper, we study the case of the digital worship collective Adorando en Casa (AeC), which was started at the onset of the pandemics, producing several crowdsourced original musical compositions, uploaded in popular social media sites, and distributed via messaging apps. We focus on the reasons for participation of Venezuelan musicians and singers from different regions in the country, and from the large diaspora of Venezuelan Evangelicals. Additionally, we analyze the characteristics, structure, and theology of some of the songs recorded, to show how the concept of a digital diasporic spiritual consciousness is powerfully expressed through worship music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the way faith and Islamic values underpin the agency and work of Muslim women in providing domestic and family violence (DFV) support services. Focusing on the role and impact of Muslim Women Australia within the DFV space in the Australian context, this article demonstrates the way Muslim Women Australia utilises faith as a tool for empowerment. It illustrates the way that—despite governmental reforms that required transition from specialised to generalist DFV services—Muslim Women Australia, via their DFV service Linking Hearts, has maintained a strong commitment to providing culturally and religiously appropriate support. Drawing on fieldwork, this article explores the intersection of Muslim women's agency, faith, and role as DFV service providers, to demonstrate the importance of culturally competent DFV support services within diverse communities. Through interviews with clients (victim-survivors) who accessed Linking Hearts services during the COVID-19 lockdowns, this article highlights the way the Islamic values of advocacy, agency, and dignity underscore the Linking Hearts model to effectively provide culturally and religiously competent support to all clients regardless of their personal beliefs and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the pandemic, Hungary was the only country in the world where the number of marriages not only decreased but also increased. Parallel to this, in the five years prior to the pandemic there were not as many divorces in Hungary as afterwards. Every year since late socialism, there were at least 10,000 fewer new marriages than marriages ending in divorce or death; a trend that was broken in 2019 when the government introduced new loans for married people at a favorable interest rate, representing a quasi-money injection to support people officially getting married (instead of merely cohabiting). Based on my digital anthropological research, I focus on the complex relationship between getting married and the end-of-marriage rituals. I found that the changes in the meanings of marriage influenced not only getting married but also the eventual end-of-marriage rituals. All these factors, as well as the specific reasons for divorce and separation (e.g., the desire to remarry), are related to the way in which end-of-marriage rituals are scripted and interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A whirlwind of developments have unfolded in the UK since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has subsequently instigated an intensely animated debate among British Muslim religious leaders about the contentious and sensitive topic of mosque closure, producing a rich and sophisticated spectrum of responses. These responses emerged within the dramatic global background of an imminent closure of Islam's most cherished mosque to international pilgrims, namely the sacred precinct in Mekkah. The stakes were, therefore, high for British Muslim religious leaders considering mosque closure, facing the stark dilemma of compromising the sacrosanct status of the mosque and congregational worship in Islam or putting the lives of British Muslims in their hundreds of thousands at risk. This paper seeks to analyze the role of religious authority within the British Muslim community through the lens of the responses of the community's religious leaders to the COVID-19 closure of mosques. It builds upon a Special Issue published by this journal on leadership, authority and representation in British Muslim communities. The issue of COVID-19 mosque closure in the UK presented an excellent case study for this paper's analysis, manifesting as it does the dynamic way in which religious authority in the British Muslim community continues to evolve. This paper thus seeks to use this case-study to further enrich the literature on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While crises, like pandemics, have a negative impact on mental health, hope may affect it positively. However, hope during COVID-19 has hardly been explored. In this study, we explored the hope of interviewees in a podcast on hope in Amsterdam during the COVID-19 pandemic, which sought variations in the gender, spiritual backgrounds, and places of work of the interviewees. Underpinned by hermeneutic phenomenology, we thematically analyzed the six transcribed episodes. We found that the present was sketched as closed down, while hope related to (the potential of) spaces and the future opening up. Sources of hope were the vaccine, good weather, faith and trust, and the history of Amsterdam, which was characterized by resilience. Several participants appreciated their everyday life in a new way: COVID-19 made them slow down and aware of what really mattered, which was a source of hope. Frequently mentioned sources of hope were connections with others, and especially solidarity. Also, showing solidarity was identified as a way of offering hope to others. We conclude that both in our study and in several religions, the link between hope and solidarity is common, and that hope is a spiritual topic that is worth addressing in mental health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic presented what, on both global and national levels, has arguably so far been the most extensive health, economic and social challenge of the 21st century. Responding to this challenge, it soon became clear that, while having a vital role in the contextual provision of necessary services, public authorities also needed to engage with organizations in the voluntary, community sector, including Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs). This article presents and discusses and analyzes a digest of research and resource evidence from the beginning of 2020–to the end of 2023 concerning the organizational, financial and human contributions of and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on, in particular, Christian FBOs in Great Britain. It goes on to analyze these contributions and impacts within the analytical framework of what it calls a wider "Christian ecology" as the context within which such FBOs live, to which they contribute, and, as argued by this review, apart from which they cannot be properly understood. Finally, in exploring some of the lessons to be learned from the evidence and analysis presented, the article identifies and considers some key opportunities and issues that arise at the interface between the work of (especially, but not only, Christian) FBOs and the structures and processes of the governmental powers-that-be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how Plato, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R Tolkien responded to tumultuous times that included the ongoing reality of death through wars and plagues and social unrest. More specifically, we draw upon the historical backdrop of Plato's dialogues, C.S. Lewis's essay, "Learning in War-time", and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to bring to light important social and psychological dimensions of the learning process that may help students and educators navigate these tumultuous times that cause confrontation with death. We argue for a middle ground between emphasizing the "unprecedented" nature of events like COVID-19, the politically divisive state of affairs in America, the war in Ukraine, the devastation of earthquakes in Syria and Turkey, and the desire to find a new normal in the midst of world-wide turmoil. We first reflect on our experiences with pandemic teaching and learning. Then, we address some contemporary research on pandemic learning. Third, we turn to the historical backdrop of Plato's dialogues, specifically the Plague, The Peloponnesian War, the rule of "The Thirty", the restoration of democracy, and the Reconciliation Agreement in Athens. Fourth, we consider some of the effects of the first and second world wars for both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Finally, we suggest that Gandalf emerges as a model of the middle ground we aim for in our pedagogical relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This thought experiment in comparison ponders a Black man's conviction that his Hebrew identity would make him immune to COVID-19. Surfacing the history of the claims and the scholar's own suspicions, the paper examines the layered politics of identification. Contra an essentialist understanding of the terms, "Hebrew" and "Hebrews" are shown to be classificatory events, ones imbricated in the dynamics of racecraft. Furthermore, a contextualization of the "race religion" model of 19th century scholarship, 20th century US religio-racial movements, and the complicated legacy of Tuskegee in 21st century Black vaccine hesitancy help to outline the need for inquisitiveness rather than hubris in matters of comparison. In so doing, this working paper advances a model of the public scholar as a questioner of categories and a diagnostician of classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the paper is to discuss the scale and nature of the practice of transmitting Holy Mass by parishes of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland through online live-streaming in spring 2020. The authors analyse these issues in a multifaceted and interdisciplinary way, mainly within the framework of communication and media studies and theology. The methodology of the paper combines practical theology (its four stages: "see-judge-act-review"), scientific methods applicable to social studies (especially social communication and media studies and sociological studies), and the technical aspect of communication activities (in the form of live video streaming) performed by parishes on the Internet. As it turns out, 40.8% of Polish parishes carried out online Mass broadcasts. In most cases, the main sources of broadcast signal were YouTube (18.9%) and Facebook (18.7%), while less than 5% of the parishes conducted technically independent broadcasts. The research showed a statistically significant correlation between online Mass broadcasting and the region of Poland. There was a statistically significant difference between the parish size and Mass broadcasting—the larger the parish, the more often such activities were performed; a similar correlation was observed between urban and rural parishes. Research has shown that in the dioceses where bishops directly encouraged parish priests to broadcast from their parishes, the average percentage of broadcasts was higher (46%) than in those in which there were no such incentives (38%). There was a statistically significant relationship between having a website and conducting online Mass broadcasting. Similarly, there was a statistically significant relationship between the type of parish (conventual–diocesan) and online Mass broadcasting. Conventual parishes did this much more often than diocesan ones (68.6% and 38.9% respectively). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature of spirit and spirituality as organic response to threat in the context of a global pandemic. Drawing from the fields of neuroscience, philosophy and theology, the author defines spirit as the biological capacity of a living organism to maintain homeostasis in response to changes in its environment. The capacity of individual human organisms to respond to changes that are perceived as threats to homeostasis with passive and active power is posited as a spirituality that is crucial for the survival of the human species. The paper represents a form of secular spirituality that is synonymous with the natural power of organic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enshrinement of religious freedom in a State Constitution is determined by the system of relations between the State and Religions. A particular aspect of religious freedom is freedom of worship, which was reframed due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the adoption of measures for the protection of public health. The examples of Cyprus and Greece demonstrate that the self-regulation enjoyed by religious communities may be harmonized with the need to protect public health and is directly connected to the existing system of relations between the State and Religions. The case law on the State restrictive measures regarding worship in conjunction with the measures implemented by the religious communities themselves together give rise to the general principles of harmonization between religious freedom and the protection of public health, with respect for the principle of proportionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs the LIM method, complemented by publications and interviews conducted during the ongoing war in Ukraine, to explore the shifts in attitudes toward war and peace within Ukrainian evangelical communities. This shift involves a transition from a pacifist mindset previously predominant among Ukrainian evangelicals to questions about their responsibility and involvement in Ukraine's state and society amid the war that Russia has launched against Ukraine. Interviews with leaders and active church members hint at a possible alignment with Stassen's alternative model of transformative initiatives that might provide potential guidance. While reconciliation initiatives amid the ongoing war may be premature, the article highlights the role of Christian communities in transformative peacebuilding within Ukraine. It is necessary to address tensions within Ukraine. This also entails aiding war-affected individuals, ensuring care for soldiers and civilians, and confronting power abuse and corruption. Ukraine's unity, freedom, peace, and reconciliation must include diverse political and social groups. The article recommends that Ukrainian evangelicals embrace a contextual public theology that advocates for peace, justice, and reconciliation. Ukrainian evangelicals, while supporting soldiers engaged in active combat against Russian invaders, are also contemplating strategies for active participation in peacebuilding and post-war reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to determine the media image of dispensation and liturgy mediated during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. The paper is based on interdisciplinary methodology, which combines elements of practical theology (the see–judge–act paradigm) and a communication and media studies approach (media content analysis, critical discourse analysis). The time range of the analysed media discourse is between 12 and 18 March 2020, which was the first week after issuing government restrictions towards liturgy and the Church's response to that: granting the dispensation and supporting the mediatisation of liturgy. The material for the discourse analysis includes online editions of 20 Polish press titles. It occurs that the general attitude of the media towards dispensation and liturgy mediated was positive, but some media tended to present the topics according to their editorial policies. The paper also formulates a theological reflection: although liturgy mediated as a permanent solution could be challenging to accept, it allowed worshippers to experience the liturgy in times of isolation. It is, therefore, an expression of the Church's concern for the health and lives of the faithful, although not entirely in line with the official and long-standing position of the Church towards the mediatisation of the liturgy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed entire social levels. Organized religion is one of those levels, having suffered a lot due to the closing of churches and the automatic physical cessation of religious services. Both the weekly practitioners and those attending church minimally (say at Easter and Christmas) felt the shock of the closing of the churches. As such, the online environment was the saving option during the pandemic. However, not all churches embraced the move of liturgical services to online from the start, and at the same time, not all churches had a rich history of using digital technologies or the Internet for religious purposes. In this context, I investigate how religious communities succeeded in dealing with the imposed governmental regulations on social distance. I follow the specific religious rituals that have suffered the most by moving liturgy online, rituals such as baptism, Eucharist, burial, etc. Because different Christian churches understand rituals and liturgical practices in different ways, I focus specifically on a succinct comparison between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the neo-Protestant environment, especially the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In addition, I briefly extend the comparison to Adventist communities from the diaspora—especially those from London, the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on digital ethnography to examine the experience of a Catholic English Benedictine monastery in the context of restrictions on religious gatherings during the global COVID-19 pandemic. As the monks expand their digital presence and social media involvement, it is their experience of social withdrawal and apparent expertise in self-isolation that provides the grounding for their public engagement. While Max Weber depicts the monk as a world-transcending "virtuoso", in a time of lockdown, this separation from the world provides a point of connection with the experience of wider society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public health guidelines implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have changed the way many people practice religion. In the realm of Islam, practices from the margins—attending online mosques and prayer groups, or praying alone—suddenly became commonplace. This paper addresses the question: What religious processes have become more evident among pluralist Muslim women during the pandemic? Based on 34 open-ended online surveys completed by pluralist Muslim women living chiefly in the USA and the UK, our analysis evidences the existence of four narratives that reflect fluctuations in the intensity and type of religious practice. The first and most prominent narrative in our dataset conveys enthusiastic embrace of social-distanced practices; the second describes a profound sense of aberration impossible to overcome in spiritual ways. The third highlights that for some Muslims, the pandemic brought no changes, as they continued to be isolated from their communities. The fourth is focused on an affirmation of a "remote" sociality experienced online. While some respondents acknowledge the increased individuation in their religious practice, they also find fulfilment in collective, if transformed, sociality. The changes in social interaction have led to a re-evaluation of salient aspects of their religious identity or, alternatively, highlighted longstanding modalities of exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As if by design, crisis reveals basic structural fault lines. In the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, non-Haredi Jews expressed surprise and even outrage about the ultra-orthodox Haredi response to the pandemic. It was not understood how large-scale violations of public health protocols comported with the legal-halakhic principle of Pikuaḥ Nefesh (saving human life). In this essay, I explore Hasidic response to COVID-19 as reported in the secular and Haredi press and in emergent social science literature about this crisis. I place Haredi response to crisis in relation to the clash between two sets of values: the value of saving human life and the value of intensive Talmud study (talmud Torah) and ritual-communal practice. In what Robert Cover called a paideic nomos, there are more important things than human life. What we see already in the Babylonian Talmud is the profound ambiguity of paideic norms vis-à-vis the larger public good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this article is to unravel the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on Catholic education at the Catholic University of Zimbabwe (CUZ), Bulawayo campus. The research, qualitative in nature, has been guided by the importance of Catholic education nationally. It has interrogated the effects of COVID-19 on that educational system. It does emerge quite prominently that Catholic education is key, and it is important in the lives of many citizens. The researcher establishes that the distinctive features of Catholic education have been part of the Bulawayo campus community. It is also shown that the implications of COVID-19 have been at two extremes. The researcher has managed to establish problems that were created by the pandemic such as the disruption in liturgy, learning and living daily life in an environment inspired by Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the history of the Catholic presence in Zimbabwe has played an important role in developing citizens, from the colonial era to the present day. The practices rooted in the principles of the church have been lived and practiced by many. Post-COVID-19 life slowly returned, and the researcher has managed to unravel factors that previously affected the lives of students and members of staff. Respondents highlighted changes and improvements in their well-being following the easing of lockdown (since March 2023) in relation to the values of Catholic education. Life in the "new normal" has brought hope as worship through Mass and other platforms of human contact have led to the cross-fertilisation of ideas amongst members of the university. The Catholic education features that were affected by the pandemic have been restored. In that regard, it can be argued that the restoration of traditional ways of doing things—the post-COVID-19 era—has brought hope to the CUZ community in Bulawayo and that it will produce men and women who will be morally upright citizens. Such citizens will use their knowledge to better the world following the principles acquired from a Catholic Education. Recipients of Catholic education have expressed optimism in the importance of being part of the Catholic community in its multi-faceted dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis truly challenged social interaction, the use of space and objects, as well as our sense of purpose and meaning in life. In this context, religious communities faced sudden interruption of their usual activities, lack of access to communal spaces and a global epidemic that summoned ancient "medieval plague" anxieties to work with. This article focuses on the vast repertoire of adaptations and reactions to the crisis that several religious communities developed in Spain. Our research is based on 40 conversations with members of Protestant and Evangelical denominations, Sunni Islam, Orthodox churches, Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Church of Scientology, Baha'i, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Christian Science and Paganism, all of them minorities in the traditionally Catholic country. To analyze this repertoire of adaptations we focus on three aspects: the general context of changes and challenges, the ritual adaptations and the subjective experience of the adaptations. Grace Q. Zhang's theories on linguistic elasticity will be applied to understand the elasticity of ritual adaptations in COVID times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the causes for vaccine resistance among Nigerian Muslims reveals what the philosopher Žižek terms a "heaven in disorder:" lack of trust in public institutions, conspiracy theories, ignorance of basic science, individual apathy, and faith in "Allah as the only protector." Other social contexts demonstrate far greater compliance. How can governments improve outcomes in vaccine resistant communities amidst such complexity, especially in instances where theology provides a right to dissent? Alongside a right to dissent, "obedience to authority" for the sake of social and political harmony is also an important principle of Islamic thought. It has the ability to enhance widespread compliance to public health guidelines by obligating the setting aside of private convictions in favor of collective cooperation. Religious literacy is an important element for responding effectively to pandemics, and by extension, other global emergencies. While policymakers must tailor their outreach to incommensurable worldviews in society, the human family must also imagine effective political models for cooperation despite divergence in worldviews. Otherwise, societies may need to choose between tyranny and anarchy. This article adds to efforts already underway which aim to demonstrate that engagement with religious norms, rather than their dismissal, represents the most promising path towards tackling vaccine resistance, especially in communities in which religious authority significantly informs social practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore how India's complex regime of control and management of religious institutions and communities—ironically, particularly Hindu institutions—influences the capacity of these institutions to promote various dimensions of human flourishing and socio-economic uplift among the most marginalized. In addition, I provide an overview of India's highly varied landscape when it comes to the freedom of religious institutions from state control, and in particular discuss how some minority religious institutions experience fewer government constraints on some aspects of their freedom to self-identify and self-govern, especially when compared to some majority institutions, such as Hindu temples. Although some minority institutions still face constraints on certain aspects of their operations, the freedom they have to manage their internal affairs can, at times, translate into greater agility and the ability to innovate and flourish in the context of 21st-century India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to determine the religious attitudes of Muslims living in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic and their reaction to restrictions on free access to religious practices introduced by the Government of Poland. The article is interdisciplinary, and the methodology combines elements of religious studies, political science of religion, and reference to communication and media studies (the importance of the role of the media in supporting government activities and the analysis of online access to Islamic religiosity during a pandemic). The study was conducted in February 2021, but the time frame of the analyzed issues ranges from 4 March 2020 to 28 February 2021, i.e., the year of the epidemic in Poland and the introduction by the Government of restrictions on religious gatherings and the response of the Muslim community to these restrictions. The analysis was carried out on the basis of the author's in-depth interview scenario; it covers representatives of the clergy, religious teachers, and the boards of major Muslim religious unions and associations, as well as Islamic cultural foundations and the attitudes of believers. The study showed that the media and Internet publicity accompanying the introduction of government restrictions and restrictions had a greater impact on society than the civil rights guaranteed in the Polish Constitution. The article also formulates a political science reflection, which shows a significant effect of the Government's actions on the religious community. Despite the constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom, religious communities in Poland have decided to suspend the exercise of these rights voluntarily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has driven several global offline communities to go online. Restrictions to the free movement of people in response to the coronavirus pandemic triggered a profound rethinking of jobs, products and services, and among them, the activities of religious communities, which are well consolidated in the offline sphere. In Spain, since the lockdown established by the government in March 2020, the Catholic Church has reinvented its activity, as all the churches and other places of worship have been closed. This constituted a considerable challenge, considering the history and dynamics of the institution. This paper aims to analyze how Catholicism, as one of the most consolidated offline communities, reworked its communication, going online in a matter of days. With this objective, researchers surveyed each and every one of the 70 Spanish dioceses, taking them as representatives of the global Catholic community in the country. Their responses are complemented with an in-depth interview with the Director of Communications at the Spanish Conference of Bishops. The results highlight the huge and unprecedented step towards the digitalization of the community through consistent, creative and efficient action. New methods, platforms and languages have been implemented, even broadening community membership. Despite an offline essence that is still detected in some decisions, this pandemic has brought a new communicative paradigm to the Spanish Catholic community. Digitalization has been consolidated whilst preserving the best aspects of direct contact and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender, religion, and migration are perplexing issues, especially in this era of the COVID-19 pandemic in which gendered and religious dynamics are emerging within migrant communities across the world. The relations between these three concepts are explored within this bleak time that has exposed previously neglected dynamics present in migrant communities living in distant host countries in Asia, Europe, and the United States of America. In this paper, we discuss the intricacies within religion and gender among migrant communities and the gendered impacts that COVID-19 has had on the aforementioned migrant communities. Through a secondary desk review analysis of the diverse emerging literature, we show that there are gendered implications of the pandemic measures taken by governments as migrant communities occupy unique translocalities. Overall, the intersection of religion, gender, and migration underscores religion reproducing gender roles among the migrants. The reproduction of gender in religious institutions disadvantage women amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis confirmed the trivial fact that migrant women continue to suffer disproportionately due to increased unemployment and disease burden coupled with religious practices that continue to advance the upward mobility of male migrants. There is a need to recast the place of migrant women in this era, and lastly, religion plays a renewed role among migrant communities especially for women who have enhanced their social positions and organizational skills through it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, many congregational leaders had to scramble to set up streaming or recording systems in order to continue their worship services without putting congregants at risk, but some congregations had already set up such systems in the years leading up to the pandemic. Previous research has found that these capabilities were not evenly distributed throughout the population of congregations, but this work has primarily focused on how technological divides are the result of a lack of economic resources. However, economic resources were not the only factor associated with whether congregations had streaming options or not. Using Wave 4 of the National Congregations Study (NCS) conducted in 2018–2019, I find that, prior to the pandemic, Catholic congregations and Protestant congregations with more enthusiastic worship services were more likely to have streaming or recording systems even after controlling for economic resources, technological knowledge, and other organizational features. The elective affinities between certain worship practices and online streaming meant that some congregations were in a better position to meet the unexpected challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. These findings highlight the important role congregations' cultural beliefs and practices can play in shaping their activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, religious exemptions to health-driven mandates enjoy, and should enjoy, protected status in medical ethics and healthcare law. Religious exemptions are defined as seriously professed exceptions to state or federal laws, which appeal to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, allowing workers to request an exception to a job requirement, including a health-protective mandate, if it "conflicts with their sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances". In medical ethics, such religious exceptions are usually justified on the basis of the principle of autonomy, where personally held convictions, reflected in scripture or established religious norms, are safeguarded on the basis of the first amendment, thereby constituting an important area in which societal good must yield to individual liberty. Acknowledging the longstanding category of "religious exemptions", and referencing some examples that adhere to its parameters in good faith (e.g., objections made by some institutions to HPV vaccines), I argue that, to date, no coherent basis for religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccines has been offered through appeal to the principle of autonomy, or, in a healthcare context, to "medical freedom". Indeed, proponents of characterizing these exemptions as legitimate misconstrue autonomy and abuse the reputation of the religious traditions they invoke in defense of their endeavors to opt out. The upshot is not only an error in interpreting the principle of autonomy, whereby it is issued a "blank check", but also a dishonesty in itself whereby a contested political position becomes deliberately disguised as a protected religious value. "Sincerely held beliefs", I conclude, appear no longer to constitute the standard for religious accommodation in the era of COVID-19. Individual declaration, seemingly free of any reasonable constraint, does. This is a shift that has serious consequences for public health and, more broadly, the public good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the efficacy of the postures, breath control techniques, and meditative states of yoga, specifically Haṭha Yoga, in promoting overall mental and physical health. It then examines whether this form of yoga could be effective in reducing morbidity or serious illness during the COVID-19 pandemic. We assess the potential efficacy of three claims made for Haṭha Yoga. They are the following: (1) breathing exercises associated with yoga may help maintain pulmonary health and protect the upper respiratory tract, the portal of entry for the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection; (2) improved immunity resulting from sustained yoga practice may help prevent COVID-19 contraction; (3) stress reduction of yoga may be effective in maintaining the mental well-being needed to combat the extra stress of living during a pandemic. Related to this claim, we examine testimony to the effect that yoga also gave people meaning and purpose in their lives during the isolating lockdown period. While exploring these beneficent advantages, we further address a serious health-related counterclaim that the community practice of yoga has the potential to create conditions that facilitate disease transmission due to heavy breathing in small, enclosed spaces. This balanced analysis introduces an interesting tension relevant to public health policy, namely that well-intended attempts to minimize indoor interaction for the sake of reducing the spread of infection may impact the effectiveness of yogic therapies and impede the freedom to practice the spiritual discipline of yoga. They may also not reduce the spread of infection enough to warrant their damaging effects on yoga practice. We suggest ways for resolving this tension and conclude with some concrete recommendations for facilitating yoga practice in future pandemics. These include (1) that public health policymakers consider programs that provide access to yoga by ensuring hospital prayer rooms appropriate in size and that, where feasible, yoga studios conduct their lessons outside in open areas; (2) that resources be devoted to providing therapeutic access to virtual yoga as a federal program, despite potential resistance to this idea of government involvement due to concerns that yoga has its origins in heterodox religious practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the scope and intensity of its impact, the COVID-19 pandemic proves instructive as an example of the shortfall in regnant legal and policy approaches to global health issues. Secular discussions of such issues tend to rely on a perspective best described as "policy realism", with current international arrangements and institutions viewed as the acceptable context for future reform. Much of recent Catholic social teaching (hereinafter, CST) has challenged such realism in fundamental ways. While CST is often dismissed as merely prophetic in its tone, I defend its salience by assessing several aspects of its distinctive perspective: (1) the broad theological and anthropological vision reflected in the Catholic framework of basic norms, especially the norm of solidarity; (2) issues that arise in identifying different modes of moral discourse in modern CST; and (3) an effort to resolve such apparent tensions that unifies a distinctively Catholic approach to global health even as it suggests a series of "talking points" between the Catholic theological vision and various secular philosophical and political perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific process of understanding natural phenomena such as evolution is an important tool for human progress, so it is good to know where it begins and where it ends, or where it leads. In this article, we put forward the observation that mysticism begins when, in understanding phenomena, we move into the intellectual realm of the unobservable and invisible material and personal life processes, which are interconnected in two ways. On the one hand, the material life processes, which can be contemplated mystically by means of scientific explanations, analogical models, and imagination, are the reason for the purposefulness of identities that are the fruit of personal processes. These are experts, professional and amateur scientists, and lay scientists who are attracted to identity precisely because of the material life processes in which they have an interest, enthusiasm, or passion. On the other hand, it is precisely their mental engagement with these material life processes through the mystical contemplation of the beautiful solutions to nature's problems that makes them true since truth is classically conceived precisely as the correspondence between intellect and a thing. Discerning the truth of hypotheses, theories, mid-range theories, and meta-theories, however, requires humility at all levels because of the collective way of seeking truth. In this process of truth discernment, it is necessary to accept humbly that I may be wrong and that my neighbor may be right, which ultimately leads us to the mysticism of the Triune God's merciful love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the systemic issues of race and class division to political partisanship and religious identity, the pandemic has affected many aspects of American social and political life. I interrogate the role that religions have played in communal identity-making during the pandemic, and how such identities shaped ideological responses, particularly in the US, stymying public health efforts to stop, or at least significantly slow, the spread of COVID-19. Drawing from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera as a historical case study, I use Garcia Marquez's depiction of religion's identity-making power during the cholera pandemic depicted in the novel as a comparison by which to understand current experiences of white Evangelical Christians in America during the current COVID-19 pandemic, particularly those who reject risk-minimizing practices such as mask wearing, quarantining, and vaccination. Drawing both from representations of Roberto Esposito's theory of immunity and community, and from Lauren Berlant's concept of "cruel optimism", as well as sociological understandings of religion and identity, I argue that the boundary-making practices of religion and of communal and national identity are related to the complex and often contradictory set of moral practices that led many white Evangelicals to disregard public health policies surrounding COVID-19. A concurrent analysis of Garcia Marquez's novel and of current events will allow me to explore this phenomenon, as Lauren Berlant would put it, both through the historically affective aesthetic and through the affective present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the symbolic capital found within Islamic documents that were circulated in the UK during the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, the work explores "fatwas" and "other" similar documents as well as "guidance" documents (referred to as FOGs) that were disseminated in March–April 2020 on the internet and social media platforms for British Muslim consumption. We confine our materials to FOGs produced only in English. Our study takes its cue from the notion that the existence of a variety of documents created a sense of foggy ambiguity for British Muslims in matters of religious practice. From a linguistic angle, the study seeks to identify (a) the underlying reasons behind the titling of the documents; and (b) the construction of discourses in the documents. Our corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis (CA-CDA) found noticeable patterns that hold symbolic capital in the fatwa register. We also found that producers of "other" documents imitate the fatwa register in an attempt to strengthen the symbolic capital of their documents. Accordingly, fatwas act as the most authoritative documents in religious matters and are written by senior religious representatives of the Muslim community, whereas guidance documents were found to be most authoritative in health matters. The findings raise questions regarding the manner in which religious instruction may be disseminated in emergency situations. Based on this study, a call for the standardisation and unification of these diverse and sometimes contradicting religious publications may be worth considering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to analyze how the historical episode of the so-called Plague of Athens between the years 430 and 426 BC seems to have been the first phenomenon classified as an epidemic by Hippocrates, and the historian Thucydides described its cultural, social, political and religious consequences. However, such a crisis generated the need for a new culture, and consequently a new theological mentality, as a cultural driver that made it possible to transform the Asclepiad Sanctuary of Kos into the first hospital in the West to integrate spirituality and science as ways to promote the healing of culture in order to achieve the ideal of health. The adopted method was a semantic analysis of the classic texts that help contextualize the Hippocratic view of the epidemic, spirituality, and health, and how these questions were received by Christianity at the time. The reception of this experience by Christianity, despite suffering some tension, also expands this Greek ideal and constitutes a true heritage of ancient wisdom that can be revisited in the time of the new pandemic, COVID-19. The perspective assumed here is interdisciplinary, putting in dialogue Theology and Health Sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]